The new year is upon us — do you know what to expect in enterprise mobility? As industry leaders, it is our responsibility to consult with subject matter experts and analysts to keep a pulse on which enterprise mobility trends will influence how organizations develop, implement and manage mobility initiatives.

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Microsoft is relevant in mobility

Many additional companies will transition from Windows 7 to Windows 10 in 2018. For many, this will be their first mobile technology experience with Microsoft. Windows 10 represents a significant departure from how devices have traditionally been managed. Connected devices — including laptops — will be managed much more like mobile devices.

This year, you’ll hear a lot more about unified endpoint management (UEM), and Microsoft will help lead the way along with VMware. UEM is the convergence of management tools for all personal computing devices — smartphones, tablets and laptops. By using its strength in desktop OS (and embracing the characteristics of mobility management), the end of Windows 7 support in 2020, and competitively priced Office 365 bundles, Microsoft will become relevant in mobility in 2018.

Exclusive BYOD is out

In 2017, most enterprises managed a mixture of corporate liable (CL) and BYOD mobility programs. In the new year, the pendulum will swing back toward CL, and there are two primary reasons for the paradigm shift.

First, enterprises simply aren’t realizing the savings they anticipated from BYOD. BYOD does not translate to unmanaged. In BYOD, the employee is using a device that is critical to her productivity; therefore, the device needs to be managed. The management of that device is a cost that doesn’t go away just because the employee is providing the device.

Additionally, when enterprises move to BYOD programs, end users are often offered a monthly stipend to help offset the burden of a monthly wireless carrier bill. If a CL mobility program is managed effectively, the monthly expense per user can be less than the allotted BYOD stipend expense — meaning it’s actually cheaper for the enterprise to run a CL mobility program instead.

The second reason for the shift in BYOD’s popularity is security. When a device is owned by an employee, what are the corporation’s rights in terms of wiping that device’s data or compelling the user to install and update security software? If the device is corporate-owned, there’s no question about the corporation’s rights pertaining to that asset. But, when the employee owns the device and is using it in a business capacity, the corporation’s rights grow blurry. Many corporations that fully transitioned to BYOD in the past have grown more concerned about security than cost savings (which may not have been as significant as anticipated) and are returning to CL programs and devices.

There are also BYOD-CL hybrid programs that continue to exist in corporations. This includes corporate-owned, personally enabled (COPE) and choose your own device (CYOD). In COPE, employees are given more freedom to configure and use each CL device as if it’s his own. CYOD still allows employees to choose their own devices — albeit from a predetermined selection made by the company — making management of the device less expensive than its BYOD counterpart.

All IoT Agenda network contributors are responsible for the content and accuracy of their posts. Opinions are of the writers and do not necessarily convey the thoughts of IoT Agenda.

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